Wednesday, January 22, 2014

I now monitor fewer music blogs compared to previous years, but I managed to find a handful of terrible band pics this year. Remember - these folks could have taken any number of attractive photos to advertise themselves, and they created these turds instead.

Foxygen

Over 55,000 Facebook likes, "Best New Music" blessing from Pitchfork, terrible photo of a man with a party hat and possibly a towel. Even Neil Diamond can't save this thing.

Glass Vaults

This photo is sure to bring the artist many curious new fans, looking for Frankenstein's Monster Rock Ballads. I like to imagine he's holding a plastic model of a uterus.

Secret Mountain

They have 1,652 Facebook likes as a band, but this Facebook photo only has 2 likes. Seems about right. Maybe they don't have a digital camera, and their roll of film ran out on this shot, right before they had to submit a photo to the internet? (Side note: I think I have heard a song of theirs and liked it.)

Monday, January 13, 2014

About 8 years ago, I first introduced my readers to a hot new video clip, and promised director's commentary. Best I can tell, that commentary was ever posted. Then we lost the video after some website hosting changed, some hard drives crashed, and the original recordings went missing when the director moved away. We hadn't uploaded it to YouTube because YOUTUBE HADN'T BEEN INVENTED YET AND VIRAL VIDEOS DID NOT EXIST, YIKES.

This weekend, a friend and personal hero resurrected the video when he found it on an old hard drive or something. Check out the website he put together to host it, and watch the video:

Did you watch? Are you grossed out by the close-ups of my face and mouth? Kinda? A lot? Me too!

So here's how that video came about. It's 2003, I'm living with some pals, and the new Denzel Washington movie, "Out of Time", is being promoted via television. The movie trailer voiceover guy says, "How do you solve a murder... when all the evidence... points to YOU?" (See the 1:17 mark of the video.)

After "How do you solve a murder..." I respond, "When it hasn't been committed?" That sparked the story of a hard-boiled detective solving nonexistent crimes while spouting off cliches.

We ended up shooting a scene in the apartment where I interrogate a man who didn't murder his wife. I argued with him a lot, and threw a glass of water in his face. We also filmed some shots of me freaking out, where the director used his Hitchcock knowledge to pan out while he moved the camera toward my head.

Floyd had the idea to use Bon Jovi's "Runaway" behind the footage, for reasons beyond my recollection or understanding.

If any other contributors would like to add to the history of this renown piece of entertainment, please do so in the comments.